Positive Reinforcement
by tswsots
Summary: Sharon catches Brenda vacuuming their shared apartment. For the Month of Love on Tumblr: Brenda/Sharon.


Sharon takes care to make as little noise as possible as she unlocks the door, although the sounds of her keys jangling and the door clicking open are masked by the roar of the vacuum cleaner, anyway. She leaves her bag in the front hallway, toes off her heels and creeps toward the living room on stockinged feet, determined to catch Brenda in the middle of whatever it is she's doing.

The Captain rounds the corner and smiles at the sight of Brenda Leigh Johnson bent over, her rear end pointed toward the ceiling, as she struggles to take apart the vacuum cleaner's attachments.

"Need help with that?" Sharon says, her voice rippling with amusement.

Brenda jumps.

**Nine hours earlier…**

Brenda yanks the window blind up for the third time, only to have the accordion folds come un-scrunched and go sliding down the full length of the window yet again. She scowls and changes her stance to try pulling the cord from another angle, her patience wearing thin. It's a good thing Sharon isn't here. The two of them moved into this apartment together a whole four months ago, but the blinds are not the only thing that Brenda still hasn't mastered. Sharon makes endless fun of her for still having to open every cupboard in the kitchen to find what she's looking for. Yesterday, as Sharon was getting on her girlfriend's case about housework, she teased that Brenda probably didn't even know where the cleaning supplies were kept.

Brenda had not been in the mood for the scolding or the teasing. Instead, she was brooding about her crime scene – or, more accurately, her lack of a crime scene. A murder investigation, for which she and her squad had dutifully rolled out in the wee small hours of Friday morning, has been superseded by the FBI, and Will has refused to intervene. Major Crimes is off the case, and Brenda is not allowed to go near the apartment where her victim, Tammy Kellar, 57, mother, divorcée, blue-ribbon baker, and FBI informant, was found strangled to death in the kitchen.

Sharon reminded Brenda that she should be glad to have a Saturday off from work for a change, but the Deputy Chief is having trouble seeing things in that light. Their plans to spend the day together are ruined anyway, since the Captain caught an OIS and is facing yet another seventy-two-hour deadline. With Sharon out of the house, there is nothing to distract Brenda from thinking about the murder. If only she could just spend two hours – even _one_ hour – at that crime scene!

Her frustration returning full force, Brenda pulls savagely at the cord. For a brief, shining moment, she thinks that she has done it: the blind is staying put. Then the whole thing comes loose from the window frame. It falls, hitting Brenda in the head before crashing to the floor.

"Oh-ooh," Brenda whines.

She peers at the plastic fasteners on either side of the top of the window frame and tries to figure out whether she broke the blind or simply dislodged it. Then she takes a step back and stares at the window, at the wall, at the space between the window and the refrigerator. Her jaw goes slack. Is she seeing things?

**Nine hours later…**

"Brenda, you were cleaning?" Sharon says, as she finishes winding the vacuum's cord into neatly counter-coiled loops and wheels the whole contraption into its corner of the hall closet.

"Well…" Brenda says. She is all set to fess up and explain how she and her squad spent the day – but then she closes her mouth.

Because Sharon's face has gone soft. Maybe it's just the evening light playing tricks, but her eyes look watery behind her glasses. She is regarding Brenda tenderly, and when she speaks, there is a barely perceptible tremor in her voice.

"I didn't think you were listening to me yesterday," she says.

"Of course I was listenin'!" Brenda protests automatically, although she's not sure what they're talking about yet.

"Yes, you were," Sharon agrees. She looks around. "This place is spotless. Thank you, Brenda. It's really, _really_, nice to come home to a clean apartment."

"Oh! Well! Well, it was no big deal, Sharon. I mean, I hardly did a thing… I just…"

Brenda doesn't mean to accept Sharon's gratitude, but now that Sharon has pulled her in for a warm hug, she is yielding. And when the hug turns into a kiss, and the kiss goes on until Brenda is breathless, she clean forgets what it was she meant to explain.

**Eight hours earlier…**

When Tao arrives, Gabriel lets him in. The Chief is leaning over the kitchen island, up to her elbows in papers.

Sanchez is standing on a chair, spreading a tape measure across the ceiling.

"Sixty-five inches, Chief" he reports.

"Sixty-five," Brenda repeats. "That's good, that's good. How 'bout from the floor to the ceilin'?"

Flynn and Provenza are standing at the opposite end of the island from the chief, drinking from mugs.

"Coffee?" Provenza offers, holding up the pot as Tao makes his way farther into the room.

"No thanks," Tao says, because he is busy trying to make out what it is that Brenda's looking at. She seems to be inspecting building plans.

"Floor to ceiling, eighty-four inches," Sanchez says, and Brenda beams.

"I knew it!" She crows. "It's exactly the same."

"The same as what, Chief?" Tao asks, impatient to be filled in.

"The same as Tammy Kellar's kitchen," Sanchez clarifies with a small smirk. He hops down from the chair.

Brenda stands. "Gentlemen, let's start tapin' off our _new_ crime scene."

**Eight hours later…**

Sharon's glasses are in the way, but she's not sure she wants to stop kissing Brenda long enough to remove them. It's a dilemma, one that Brenda eventually resolves for her by pulling away.

"Hello, to you, too," Brenda says. "How was your day?"

"Better now," Sharon says.

They lace their fingers together and smile for a minute, because living together is still new, but it is so right in a hundred ways. Brenda was here waiting for Sharon, and while their plans to spend the day together were disrupted, there's nothing standing in the way of a perfect Saturday night.

Sharon keeps hold of Brenda's left hand as she walks toward the bedroom. She lets go long enough to take of her glasses, unfasten her hair clip and remove her watch. She sets all of these things on the bedside table and sits on the side of the bed.

She looks up at her girlfriend with a mixture of love and desire, and reaches for her. Brenda allows herself to be pulled into Sharon's lap.

The Deputy Chief kisses the side of the Captain's head and whispers, "Where were we?"

**Three hours earlier…**

"Okay, let's try this one more time," Brenda says. Somewhere along the way, she picked up a rubber spatula, and now she is using it as a pointer. She gestures with the spatula toward the window, which, without the blind, looks just like the one from the real crime scene. "What if the killer entered through the window, here?"

Gabriel, pretending to be the killer, positions himself by the window.

Brenda points at the counter space between the sink and the stove, and continues, "Our victim was usin' the Kitchen-Aid, _there_ – Lieutenant, would you?" Flynn, who has donned Sharon's apron in order to play the role of the victim, returns to his starting position.

"The cupboard door was open," Brenda goes on. "The victim reached up to get the flour –"

Flynn pulls down the bag of King Arthur flour, which, after a few rounds of this scenario, is quite a bit lighter than it was at first.

"Put your hands up. Don't move," Gabriel says, and Flynn whirls around. Instead of putting his hands up, he throws the bag of flour at his fake attacker, and makes a break for the far door. This time, flour bursts, rains and pours from the bag, covering Gabriel's maroon tie and designer suit, sprinkling the window sill behind him, and creating a cloud that hangs in the doorway leading to the living room.

Inspecting the patterns of flour on the living room rug, Brenda nods in satisfaction. "Ms. Kellar threw the bag of flour," she confirms. "Didn't drop it; _threw _it. She obviously felt threatened. And there was flour on the outside window sill, so we know the window was open when she threw the bag. The killer must have closed it later."

Gabriel coughs and uses the back of his and to brush flour out of his eyebrows and moustache. "But Chief, the FBI agents told us that the killer entered through the front door, and that Tammy let him in."

"Well, either the FBI is mistaken – which, considerin' the way they have mishandled this investigation from the first minute, would not surprise me one little bit – or –" and Brenda's eyes widen as she considers another possibility.

"—Or, there was a second assailant," Flynn suggests. "Chief, are we done here? Can I take the apron off, now?"

"It suits you, Flynn," Provenza says.

"You might want to keep it on, Lieutenant," Brenda says, smiling sweetly. "After all, y'all are stayin' to help me clean up, right?"

"Look, I'm not saying this hasn't been fun," Flynn replies, "But I'm already late for an AA meeting."

"Okay, you're excused," Branda says grudgingly. "But the rest of you will stay, right?" She looks around at her squad.

Tao raises a hand.

"Uh, actually, chief, I'm taking my son to a Lakers game this evening." He checks his wrist watch. "Should have been home half an hour ago."

"It's a _Saturday_, Chief Johnson," Provenza reminds her.

One by one, the members of Brenda's division make their excuses and file out.

The Deputy Chief twists her mouth and surveys the scene.

The island and counters are littered with files, photos of the crime scene, and empty coffee mugs. Numbered yellow tents dot the floor to show where glass shards, broken eggs, blood stains, and the corpse were found.

And flour is everywhere. All over the kitchen. All over the living room. And all over Brenda herself.

It suddenly occurs to Brenda that Sharon was right: she doesn't know where the cleaning supplies are.

**Four hours later…**

Brenda rolls over in bed to face the wall. Sharon scootches closer, spooning her. She hums gently as she runs her fingers through Brenda's hair.

Brenda stares at the wall for a long time, making up her mind.

"Sharon," she says at last, "I wanna confess."

"You mean you're not going to wait for your attorney?" Sharon deadpans.

Brenda twists to look at Sharon and grabs hold of her shoulder.

"I'm serious!" she says. "Sharon, the reason I cleaned up today – well, I _did _want to do a better job helpin' out, like we talked about, but also, I was cleanin' up a mess that Imade."

"What mess?" Sharon says, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, you see, this mornin' I realized that, by a really amazin' coincidence, our kitchen was almost exactly the same as the crime scene. So I called my detectives, and I –"

Brenda breaks off, because she realizes that Sharon is shaking with silent laughter.

"What's so funny?" she says petulantly.

"Brenda, you still have flour in your hair," Sharon says, giving up on smothering her laughter. "And I saw your entire squad leaving when I parked the car downstairs. Flynn and Provenza told me everything."

"So you – This whole time –" Brenda doesn't know whether to laugh or be angry. "Why did you make a big speech about me cleanin' up if you knew I didn't do it for you?"

"But you did do it for me," Sharon says. "Would you have gotten everything cleaned up by six o'clock if you weren't expecting me home?"

"Well, no."

"So," Sharon says, kissing Brenda, "thank you."

"Mm," Brenda murmurs. "You're welcome."

"And now that you know where the vacuum cleaner goes, maybe you could get in the habit of using it more often? Say, every Saturday?"

"I'm beginning to think that it might just be worth my while," Brenda says, pulling Sharon closer.


End file.
